But for adventurists and amateur athletes normally obsessed with speed and clocking miles, Bhutan is the kind of place where it pays to take it slowly. And sometimes there’s no choice: The reduced oxygen levels at high altitudes will tame even the fittest; winding single lane mountain roads bring traffic to a halt; and perhaps for the better, BlackBerrys hardly work.

When in Bhutan, my advice is to stop and smell the rhododendrons. There are literally whole forests of them here. The delights in one of the world’s most secluded countries are the small discoveries made along the way.

My guide, Tshering Norbu, greeted me early one morning for what he said would be one of our most challenging climbs. Originating in the valley Gangtey, we planned to ascend from around 3,000 meters, or 9,800 feet, above sea level to 4,000 meters. That sounded mighty high to me. Mont Blanc, at 4,800 meters, is the highest peak in the Alps, but it’s nothing for Bhutan, where peaks can reach about 8,000 meters.

Ap Norbu (‘Ap’ is a title of respect) is a fit man with encyclopedic knowledge who, like most Bhutanese, grew up in a farmhouse of more than a dozen extended family members in an age not long ago when electricity, telephones and televisions were still rare. He’s 32 or 33 years old, depending on how you count it (life starts at the moment of conception in Buddhism), and this is the first time I had seen him in sports attire rather than in his national dress, or “gho,” a robe tied around the waist. This was going to be serious.

The trail upward was shaped more like a deep gully than the paths I’ve come to know elsewhere. Not because of heavy rains, I learned, but because the yaks had reshaped the land over the years as they wander up and down the mountains.

At one point, Ap Norbu picked up a large stone for protection. Three yaks blocked the path. “Tsssht, tsssht!” Ap Norbu hissed to get them to step aside. Yaks seem lethargic and peaceful but can often act aggressively toward strangers. We passed slowly and resumed.

Along the way, Ap Norbu pointed proudly to the rhododendrons, which bloom in the spring and pepper the forests with bursts of red, white and pink. Here they aren’t shrubs, like in much of the world, but giant trees. As proud as the Bhutanese are of the genus, they chose the blue poppy as their national flower, since nearby (and rival) Nepal had claimed the rhododendron as its own.

Slowly we reached the summit and Ap Norbu handed me a sprig of leaves he had plucked from a tree. We pressed them into the ground as an offering.

Bhutan is a deeply religious country. The large towns are dominated by palatial Zhongs, which are monasteries, chapels and city halls all wrapped into one. Clusters of bamboo poles dot hillsides with white prayer flags fluttering from them. No Bhutanese life is complete without a pilgrimage to the Tiger’s Nest, a revered temple that hangs from a cliff not far from the town of Paro.

The kingdom of just 700,000 inhabitants is fighting hard to preserve its national identity. National dress is required of locals nearly everywhere, even at the bank. And tourism is strictly regulated.

Still, there are signs of change and modernization. Some 100,000 tourists are expected in 2012, up from about 64,000 last year. The country recently converted into a constitutional monarchy from an absolute monarchy. Many of the single-lane roads are in the process of widening, though I personally witnessed a large truck tumble off the side of a cliff as it was trying to pass another truck. (I was later told the driver miraculously survived.) An airport runway has been built next to the birthplace of previous kings. Hydroelectric power plants are going up. There are even golf courses.

Ap Norbu laments that now many farmers prefer to be indoors watching television rather than out on the hillsides herding their yaks. And small bits of litter dot trails. Long gone are the days when mothers would wrap school lunches in leaves like in Ap Norbu’s youth.

Despite the transformation, Bhutan remains largely unspoiled and the relative lack of infrastructure — mainly traffic — means the country is a gem for outdoor activities like cycling, though few locals are wealthy enough to pursue it themselves.

One day, not far from the town of Trongsa, I saw the king, the 32-year old Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, cycle by in a gleaming white Trek jersey. He was accompanied by several friends, and a motorcade of Land Rovers that included the queen.

I preceded one of my own cycling adventures near the town of Jakar with a lunch in the home of a woman who simply goes by the name of Tshomo. She owns a farmhouse and is famous for cooking for the king when he’s in town. I dined on buckwheat pancakes, a dish of potato and yak cheese, and washed it down with a shot of homemade ara, a rice wine similar to Japanese sake.

At 2,700 meters above sea level, this was the highest I had ever cycled. I felt shortness of breath that would be expected from someone who lives at sea level, and had fortunately had a few days to adjust to the altitude. Proper hydration and taking it easy, as sports doctors recommend, helped me slowly get by.

In September, Bhutan will host a one-day mountain bike race
, perhaps one of the most challenging in the world, known as the “Tour of the Dragon.” It spans 268 kilometers with elevations ranging from 1,200 to 3,340 meters.

Getting in and out of Bhutan for a single day as a foreigner is a logistical and bureaucratic hassle, so the luxury Amanresorts hotel group, which operates the Amankora
chain here, is offering a 10-night package for race participants for $13,000 each.

Cyclists and hikers are fairly rare here, but archery enthusiasts are aplenty. Bhutan was granted a single wild card spot for the London Olympics and is sending the female Sherab Zam
, 28.

Ap Norbu made an honorable attempt at trying to get me to shoot properly on the sandy, and fortunately unpopulated, banks of a river that passes through the town of Punakha. After a few miserable attempts, I laid down my weapon and moved on to future pursuits, feeling fortunate to have visited a country that few ever get to see and that is rapidly changing.

Article source: http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/travel/19iht-athlete19.html?src=mv&ref=travel

Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK (PRWEB UK) 18 May 2012

Tribes Travel director, Guy Marks, is heading to Bhutan on an exploratory tour of the country with a view to Tribes starting to offer Bhutan tours in 2013. This will be 10 days of excellent adventure (bearing in mind that things might not always go quite to plan on an exploratory trip), and there are are a few places left on this exciting recce of this fascinating country.

This is a trip to get an idea of the lay of the land of Bhutan and see many of the main sites of the country. It is not a trekking trip.

From the capital of Paro, there is a drive to Thimpu for 2 nights, then a night each at Punakha and Gangtey. Following this there are 2 nights in Bumthang before returning to Paro.

There will be stunning scenery, monasteries, stupas, museums, villages, beautiful valleys, mountains and rivers, and of course the opportunity to find out lots about Buddhism and meet some fantastic people.

Due to the flight schedules (there are no direct flights to Bhutan), there will be a day in Kolkata on the way out and on the way back. A city tour is planned for one of these days.

DATE: 5th to 16th October 2012

PRICE: £2440 per person sharing (includes accommodation, meals, transfers, flights Kolkata-Paro-Kolkata, and the Bhutan visa)

INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS: Approx £690 for UK-Kolkata-UK

Contact for more details. Tribes would be delighted for more adventurers to join Guy on this exciting trip!

For more details, see the web page about this trip at: http://www.tribes.co.uk/countries/bhutan/holiday/bhutan_discovery_tour

Amanda Marks
Tribes Travel
01728 685971
Email Information

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/join-tribes-travel-director-exploratory-bhutan-tour-october-101217430.html

The Indian central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is setting aside US$2 billion for a currency swap facility among South Asian Association For Regional Cooperation (Saarc) member countries.

Currency swap is a foreign exchange instrument, which involves the exchange of currencies between two entities. The $2 billion, therefore, will be exchanged between RBI and the Saarc member countries.

This arrangement came through in a meeting between Saarc central bank governors in Pokhara, Nepal this week.

Under the facility, a member country can make withdrawals of US Dollar, Euro or Indian Rupee in multiple portions, RBI governor Dr D Subbarao said.

The withdrawal will mature in three months and the payment of equivalent home currency can be done twice. The first payment will be charged a normal interest rate, which is the LIBOR rate plus two per cent.

LIBOR or London Interbank Offered Rate is the average interest rate that lending banks in London charge when lending to other banks. The LIBOR rate is the benchmark for many financial institutions around the world while fixing interest rates.

The second payment will have an additional 0.5 per cent interest rate more than the normal interest rate.

For rupee withdrawals, the normal interest rate is the RBI repo rate minus 2 per cent. Repo rate is the rate at which RBI lends to banks in India.

Repayment can either be done by putting back an equivalent amount of home currency or a currency denominated government security.

An official from the Royal Monetary Authority said that each Saarc member would be entitled a quota from the $2 billion fund.

Assuming the fund is divided equally, each member countries will get $285 million. This works out to 15 billion ngultrum ($275 million) at the present dollar rate at 54 ngultrum ($.99).

A news release from the Reserve Bank of India states that the fund it made available was based on the two months import expenditure records of each member countries. Based on that, each member country can get between $100 million and $400 million.

The swap facility is being entirely funded by India. The central bank official said that India was the biggest economy in South Asia, and most South Asian countries have huge trade integration with India.

The central bank official said it was possible for Bhutan to print Ngultrum but not foreign currencies. Therefore, the swap facility will help the economy in using foreign currencies for trade.

The central bank is however not sure whether they will be able to lift some rupee restrictions it has put in place since March. “But it’ll definitely ease pressure on the rupee demand to some extent,” the official said, adding that the demand for rupee in the economy continues to increase at a rapid pace.

The decision for a swap arrangement to meet any balance of payment or liquidity crisis was made in 2009, when foreign currency flows dried up amid the global credit crunch, following the global financial crisis.

The release also states that for availing of the facility, the central banks of requesting countries will have to enter into a bilateral swap agreements, which need final approval from the Indian government.

The swap facility has been proposed by RBI and approved by the Union cabinet recently.

The facility will be available to all Saarc member countries; Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The facility is expected to strengthen regional financial and economic cooperation.

A major cause of current concern in the region is the drying up of credit and the contraction of financial markets. Mechanisms must, therefore, be developed aimed at creating bilateral arrangements in the region to address short-term liquidity difficulties and to supplement international financing arrangements, the release states.

COPYRIGHT: ASIA NEWS NETWORK

Article source: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/bhutan-economy-improve-saarc-currency-swap-053003843.html

The central bank would however issue INR in a demand draft for all 14 wholesale vendors together, until the vegetable season begins in the country.

On May 13, vegetable wholesale agents had requested the agriculture minister that the INR be issued to them until the end of this month.

The RMA had earlier said that from May 19, it would issue INR to the Food Corporation of Bhutan (FCB), and not to vegetable vendors, to import vegetables that cannot be met from home production.

After June first week, FCB will take over the imports of those vegetables and fruits that cannot be met from local production. In a week, FCB is estimated to import 76.22MT of tomato, garlic, onion, chili and assorted fruits worth 2 million ngultrum (US$36,700).

Bhutanese farmers today grow 31 types of vegetables in the country, show records with the horticulture division¿s vegetable program, which functions out of a small office amid the lines of single storied structures.

During the ¿production season¿ from May to October, Bhutan produces 2,400MT (100MT a week) of local vegetables worth 12 million ngultrum ($220,000). In these six months, vendors only import onion, tomato and gourds.

When local vegetable production drops in the country from November to April, Bhutan imports about 5,000MT (208MT a week) of vegetables, more than twice the amount it produces during its own season. The most imported vegetables are onion, tomato, chili, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, beans and eggplants, while the most exported vegetables are cabbage, turnips, peas, beans and chilis.

The amount of money Bhutan spends on imports during the lean season is 83 million ngultrum ($1.5 million), almost seven times higher than the worth of what it produces in its peak vegetable season.

Bhutan¿s local produce of 120MT (5MT a week) during these lean months is worth 4.8 million ngultrum ($88,200).

Major vegetable sufficiency in two years

Bhutan is giving itself two years to turn around its vegetable production scenario to substitute imports of major vegetables, agriculture officials said. Agriculturists estimate a budget of 60 million ngultrum 9$1.1 million) in these two years to accelerate local vegetable production.

“We need to work, we¿ve developed a plan and, if we can implement as planned, then maybe, by two years, we¿re hoping to be sufficient,¿ national vegetable program coordinator, Namgay Thinley, said.

Taking the minimum international standard vegetable required per day per person of 200 grammes, Bhutan is today 56 per cent vegetable sufficient, based on its total local vegetable production and the number of people it feeds, including expatriate workers. Excluding the 50,000 expatriates, Bhutan¿s self sufficiency in vegetables comes to 60 per cent.

“When we say 60 per cent, it means that the vegetable available for each of us is 139 grammes per day, which is below the international requirement of 200 grammes,¿ Namgay Thinley said. ¿But we¿re not sure how much each consumes.¿

For Bhutan to meet the minimum 200 grammes vegetable requirement, it needs to increase vegetables production by 24,000MT to its annual production of 30,595MT. ¿If we can achieve 54,445MT of vegetables, then 200 grammes will be available per person per day,¿ he said.

To be self-sufficient, Bhutan will focus on growing 15 vegetables at home that are imported in huge volumes, agriculture officials said.

Work is already underway to take stock of what vegetable can be produced at what quantity from a particular dzongkhag for May and June.

A preliminary estimate shows that about 19 districts can produce 4,680MT of 26 kinds of vegetables in these two months.

COPYRIGHT: ASIA NEWS NETWORK

Article source: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/bhutan-extends-rupee-issuance-vendors-053004512.html

The tiny, mostly-Buddhist Himalayan kingdom won a world voice for adopting a happiness index to measure its economy. But its prime minister says it promptly forgot its own lesson, and let a sudden rush of prosperity go to its head.

“Wealth creates increased desire,” Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley told Reuters in an interview in the capital Thimphu, surrounded by tree covered mountains dotted with prayer flags.

“There are families with four or five cars. There are luxury vehicles being imported that can hardly drive on our roads and are made for far better roads than we have here.”

A country that was closed to foreigners until 1974 and only recently opened up to the forces of globalization lacked the tools to cope with new-found economic growth and the wealth it brought.

Debt-fuelled consumerism that far outpaced economic output has now led, inevitably, to a rude awakening.

The government has cut expenditure and is considering raising taxes on imported vehicles. The central bank, the Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan, has rationed the main trading currency, the Indian rupee, squeezing private businesses.

Youth unemployment is over 9 percent and people are drifting away from the countryside, and traditional values, to the towns.

Worst of all, Bhutan’s most recent Gross National Happiness (GNH) index, in 2010, found only 41 percent qualified as “happy”.

BECOMING MORE MATERIALIST

“We have been moving away from GNH values and, like many countries, becoming more materialist,” said Thinley.

“When such tendencies come at a cost to the economy, like we are suffering now, the government has to take difficult measures,” he said. “We have to accept that the rupee is not our currency.”

Thinley’s Druk Phuensum Tshogpa government won power in Bhutan’s first democratic election in 2008 and heads to the polls again next year.

He said the crisis highlighted the need to focus once more on the happiness index, which uses nine criteria: psychological well-being, ecology, health, education, culture, living standards, use of time, community vitality and good governance.

“Our economic problems are the result of being opened to the world and being part of the globalization process.”

Despite its boom, Bhutan remains one of the world’s least developed and poorest nations, where 70 percent of 700,000 people live on subsistence farming. But economic growth led to a surge in imports of industrial and consumer goods from neighboring India.

Almost one in eight of the 65,000 vehicles on its roads were imported last year.

Thinley said the cost of importing fuel to keep these cars on the roads wiped out the earnings that Bhutan made from its major industry, selling hydro-electric power to India.

“The revenue we earn from exporting clean energy is the same as the cost for the dirty fuel that we import from India,” he said, sipping Bhutan’s traditional butter-and-salt tea in a timber-clad room dominated by portraits of Bhutan’s five kings.

HAPPINESS OR DEVELOPMENT?

But it seems to be getting harder to convince people to put a holistic sense of happiness ahead of raw economic development.

In parliament on Thursday the government forecast economic growth of 7-8 percent next year and said it hoped to reach its target of cutting poverty to 15 percent from 23 percent. The electricity grid covers 77 percent of the country.

“It’s sad but true that the roads we are building to take services to villages are the roads by which villagers leave and some set up shanty towns around the cities,” said Thinley, dressed in Bhutan’s traditional knee-length, belted robe.

He said the government must priorities policies that promoted the appreciation of rural life and stop the drift into urban areas, which was decimating villages and making the country more dependent on imported produce.

“In many ways, life in the rural setting is better and the possibility to find happiness is far greater than living in a city where you don’t even know your next-door-neighbor and violence is rising,” he said.

“We need to create a conscious desire in our people to continue to live in rural areas or move back from urban areas. Rather than live in a stuffy apartment, go back to the farm!”

It may be a hard message to sell to the young people heading for the towns, abandoning traditional dress for jeans, and looking for civil service jobs rather than manual work.

“People across Bhutan need to realize that we need to be more independent,” he said, “(relying) on our own farming and resources.”

(Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/bhutan-counts-cost-trying-buy-happiness-181934929--business.html

Going by the information Indonesian government agencies are dishing out to the media, it appears bent on convincing farmers, as well as consumers, that imported vegetables are way overpriced, have high chemical content, and are no good for health.

At this rate, Bhutanese vegetarians might want to start eating meat, which again is mostly imported from India, and what quality is coming in no one can say for sure.

But the whole point of the government’s drive is to get farmers all interested in growing greens as a viable income source, and reduce dependence of imports.

The country is blessed with three broad climate zones – from the subtropical south, temperate central to the alpine north – which allows for the cultivation of all the vegetables imported today, including the bulb onion.

The only thing about the bulb onion is that it has to be in the ground for two years to first get the seed that will give the crop, and our farmers don’t really have the resources and the time to wait that long for a vegetable that is not really an essential in Bhutanese diet.

But if Bhutanese are not growing as much greens as they can, it is also because Bhutanese don’t eat a lot of greens.  In fact, stories of yesteryear indicate that making fresh greens part of the Bhutanese diet is quite a recent phenomenon, may be several decades old.

The only thing that might have been consumed in quantity and regularly would be chilis, cooked as a curry with cheese, or slightly burnt over the flames and stuffed with butter, or dried and powered into a fiery pickle or sauce, or eaten raw with salt.

When it comes to chili production, Bhutan produces enough of it but, because we eat so much of it, some quantity still has to be imported, agriculture officials say.

Many fertile valleys in the western and central regions also produce significant quantities of leafy green vegetables like spinach and lettuce, cabbage and cauliflower, which should hit the markets any day now, and make their way to the auction yards in the border towns.

But if Bhutanese hardly eat green vegetables, then who eats the almost 300 million ngultrum (US$5.5 million) of greens that are imported annually? This figure could get lower, if the cost of importing fruits is taken out.

A bulk of the supplies goes to hotels and institutions, like schools, training centres, monastic bodies and security forces.  A look at the diet in schools indicates that it is usually potato morning, noon and night, day after day, with only a hint of greens.

It has been suggested that, to be able to produce greens for local consumption, it must be commercialised.  This might mean large scale farming using chemicals and fertilisers to boost production. At the same time, there is already an initiative to keep cultivation organic.

Keeping cultivation organic and, at the same time, substituting imports is the challenge of the homegrown greens drive.

Article source: http://asianewsnetwork.feedsportal.com/c/33359/f/566601/s/1f651680/l/0L0Sasianewsnet0Bnet0Chome0Cnews0Bphp0Did0F30A728/story01.htm

At this rate, Bhutanese vegetarians might want to start eating meat, which again is mostly imported from India, and what quality is coming in no one can say for sure.

But the whole point of the government’s drive is to get farmers all interested in growing greens as a viable income source, and reduce dependence of imports.

The country is blessed with three broad climate zones – from the subtropical south, temperate central to the alpine north – which allows for the cultivation of all the vegetables imported today, including the bulb onion.

The only thing about the bulb onion is that it has to be in the ground for two years to first get the seed that will give the crop, and our farmers don’t really have the resources and the time to wait that long for a vegetable that is not really an essential in Bhutanese diet.

But if Bhutanese are not growing as much greens as they can, it is also because Bhutanese don’t eat a lot of greens. In fact, stories of yesteryear indicate that making fresh greens part of the Bhutanese diet is quite a recent phenomenon, may be several decades old.

The only thing that might have been consumed in quantity and regularly would be chilis, cooked as a curry with cheese, or slightly burnt over the flames and stuffed with butter, or dried and powered into a fiery pickle or sauce, or eaten raw with salt.

When it comes to chili production, Bhutan produces enough of it but, because we eat so much of it, some quantity still has to be imported, agriculture officials say.

Many fertile valleys in the western and central regions also produce significant quantities of leafy green vegetables like spinach and lettuce, cabbage and cauliflower, which should hit the markets any day now, and make their way to the auction yards in the border towns.

But if Bhutanese hardly eat green vegetables, then who eats the almost 300 million ngultrum (US$5.5 million) of greens that are imported annually? This figure could get lower, if the cost of importing fruits is taken out.

A bulk of the supplies goes to hotels and institutions, like schools, training centres, monastic bodies and security forces. A look at the diet in schools indicates that it is usually potato morning, noon and night, day after day, with only a hint of greens.

It has been suggested that, to be able to produce greens for local consumption, it must be commercialised. This might mean large scale farming using chemicals and fertilisers to boost production. At the same time, there is already an initiative to keep cultivation organic.

Keeping cultivation organic and, at the same time, substituting imports is the challenge of the homegrown greens drive.

COPYRIGHT: ASIA NEWS NETWORK

Article source: http://my.news.yahoo.com/editorial-bhutans-veggie-challenge-054004208.html

Article source: http://asianewsnetwork.feedsportal.com/c/33359/f/566603/s/1f64e9d0/l/0L0Sasianewsnet0Bnet0Chome0Cnews0Bphp0Did0F30A70A8/story01.htm

The task force report the government released yesterday recommends mostly taxation on vehicles, fuel, heavy earth moving machinery, as well as abolishing tax-free vehicle quota system.

The report recommends a 40 per cent green tax on all vehicle imports.

The earlier tax revision, five per cent increase in tax for imports from India, has had little impact on vehicle imports, the report stated.

Last year, out of the 6,893 vehicles imported from India, around 4,254 were imported after the tax revision.

The report stated that vehicle imports constitute a substantial component of Bhutan’s total import portfolio leading to an increase in fuel consumption and therefore, Rupee outflow.

Fuel imports constitute one of the top 10 imports.

This year, the economy’s fossil fuel consumption reached 5.5 billion ngultrum (US$102 million), which is about 10 per cent of gross domestic product.

With increase in import, as well as consistent rise in global price of fuel and the consequent Rupee outflow, the report recommends that a green tax of five per cent, equivalent to the current sales tax on fuel imports, be levied.

Import of heavy earth moving machinery should also be levied customs duty and sales tax, the report stated.

The report also suggested abolishing the vehicle quota system for all public servants.

While impacting on government revenue as much as 910 million ngultrum ($16.9 million) between 2002 to 2011, it has also been leading to increasing fuel consumption.

Vehicles under the quota system were mostly from third countries and did not directly lead to Rupee outflow. There was, however, a huge impact on fuel imports, as well as in the form of double imports, because most quotas are sold to the private sector.

Around 3,121 vehicles worth 2.6 billion ngultrum ($48 million) were imported through the quota system between 2002 and 2011. More than 56 per cent of the total vehicles imported from third countries were also through the quota system.

The report recommended suspension of new quotas for the time being.

Government pool vehicles, it stated, should also be reviewed by a committee of secretaries, to curb the impact on convertible currency and fuel imports.

Other short and long-term measures, the report recommended, were reducing expenditures on utility supplies, operating expenses, advertisement, entertainment, furniture, office equipment and vehicles, irrespective of the source of funding.

Other measures include attracting Indian tourists, encouraging industries that have the capacity to substitute imports, introduction of base rate and policy rate by the central bank to manage and influence domestic credit growth.

The Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan should also take measures to discourage excessive lending to non-productive and highly exposed sectors by imposing strict requirements on housing, transport and personal loans.

Other recommendations included sustainable use of forest resources, establishing agriculture cold storage facilities and development of private tertiary colleges within Bhutan.

Short-term measures included increasing the limits of borrowings from the credit facilities in India, and currency SWAP arrangements among SAARC nations.

COPYRIGHT: ASIA NEWS NETWORK

Article source: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/bhutan-vehicles-core-rupee-shortage-054002520.html

Article source: http://asianewsnetwork.feedsportal.com/c/33359/f/566603/s/1f528bc5/l/0L0Sasianewsnet0Bnet0Chome0Cnews0Bphp0Did0F30A60A5/story01.htm